Eating Healthier in Today's World

Is it Worth it to Juice Vegetables?  Tips and Tricks

Juicing is no longer just a fad. Supported by tons of studies, juicing is fast becoming a way of life for the health-conscious at heart. That's because diets high in fruits and vegetables can help prevent or cure a wide range of ailments. Fresh-squeezed juice liquefies the vitamins, minerals and enzymes found in fruits and vegetables, so your body can metabolize them faster.  Juicing is a quick convenient way to keep the doctor away.  This is the perfect time of year to start juicing our fruits and vegetables when the price of produce is the lowest or as we harvest our own gardens.

Why should I take the time and make fresh juice?  This question is asked often by our customers.  Making juice every day can be easy and quick with the right quality juicers that we sell at healthykitchens. 

Virtually every health authority recommends that we get 6-8 servings of vegetables and fruits per day and very few of us actually get that. Juicing is an easy way to virtually guarantee that you will reach your daily target for vegetables.

While you can certainly juice fruits, if you are overweight, have high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol, it is best to limit using fruits until you normalize these conditions.  You can add lemons or limes which don't have the offending sugars in them that usually cause the problems with our metabolisms and they also help with the taste of some of the dark green leafy vegetables like kale and spinach that provide us with most of the juicing benefits.

Juicing – Why It Should Be Part of Your Optimal Healthy Daily Regimen

We believe vegetable juicing is one of the healthiest practices you can do for you and your family. It’s something we highly recommend as part of your daily regimen to complement a diet that is both healthy and easy to do.

But juicing fruit is a somewhat different story. While you can certainly juice fruits, it’s something we would recommend only in moderation. Most fruit juices simply end up loaded with a ton of sugar because you are removing the valuable fiber which helps lower the absorption of the fructose in the fruit...

There are many reasons why we feel you should consider incorporating vegetable juicing into your optimal nutritional planning. Here are some of the main reasons this is so important.

• Helps you absorb the nutrients from the vegetables – This is important because most of us have impaired digestion as a result of making less-than-optimal food choices over time. This can limit your body's ability to absorb nutrients from the vegetables even though you may have been eating lots of vegetables over the years.   
• Juicing will help to “pre-digest” nutrients so you will receive most of the nutrition, rather than having it just go straight through you. However, unless you also eat the pulp, you will be missing out on the fiber that fruit and vegetables provide. We have several recipes that you can use the leftover pulp here including cookies, soups, and even a Vegetable bread.
• Lets you to consume an optimal amount of vegetables in an efficient manner – Getting more than five servings of vegetables per day is challenging for everyone. It is usually hard to find the time, but even just eating the recommended number of servings may be difficult. An easy and quick glass of vegetable juice can help you achieve the needed servings.
• Encourages a wider variety of vegetables in your diet – Many people eat the same vegetable salads every day ( I personally am guilty of this). This violates the principle of regular food rotation. But with juicing, you can juice a wide variety of vegetables that you may not normally enjoy eating whole.

However, with all the anticipated prep and cleanup associated with juicing, many people think it can be too daunting a task to do daily.  But I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how quick and easy it can actually be, particularly when you find the right juicer to do most of the work for you. And I’ll let you in on one of our juicing secrets – you don’t have to spend big-time bucks to find what I consider to be a high-quality, efficient juicer.

Eight Easy Tips for Efficient Juicing

 

It is essential to find the most efficient way to juice.  The idea of juicing raw vegetables to maximize your vegetable intake is very compelling. But let’s face it, we are just very busy people and don't have time to spend doing anything extra.

However, when looking making all your daily juice in advance to save time and be more efficient, this can present some challenges of its own. Vegetable juice is perishable – so it’s best to drink immediately after juicing, within 10 min. in fact to gain the optimum benefits. But there are some techniques you can use to make it last longer… at least for about a day.

Here’s a set of tips to help you get started in juicing, and even some new ideas for those who have been juicing for some time.

• Start out by juicing vegetables that are easy to digest and tolerate –Recommended are celery, fennel (anise), and cucumbers as your starting base. But everyone’s system is a bit unique, so let your body tell you if you are able to d

• Organic vegetables should be a priority because they can save you time – With most organic vegetables, you don’t even have to remove the skin (like cucumbers). Plus, organic veggies have been grown without the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, so you don't have to scrub them down to remove these unwanted substances.

• Try other veggies when your system is ready – Once you feel you’re tolerating celery, fennel, and cucumbers, you can begin adding other leafy vegetables like kale, parsley, dandelion greens, cabbage, collard, beet tops, endive, lettuce, and most any other dark green leafy vegetable.

• Be sure to start with small amounts as most of the above vegetables can be quite bitter.

• If you need to make your juice taste better, juice-in a half lemon or whole lime – Carrots, beets, or apples have a  high fructose content so use them sparingly or avoid them altogether. Adding lemons or limes can help make the juice easier to drink. If you really need more flavour, certain berries (especially cranberries) contain low amounts of fructose.

• Save time and prepare your juice at one time for the entire day – If you’re planning on drinking your juice multiple times during the day, you can do everything at once to save time. But I recommend you pour the juice into a glass Mason or Ball jar filled to the top to avoid oxidation. Place it in the refrigerator right away. This will help to potentially retain the nutritional value and its colour for the next 12-24 hours.

• Get organized when you’re ready to juice – Get all the vegetables washed and ready to go. Don’t peel or slice anything you don’t have to. With most organic veggies, you can just go ahead and juice them without peeling. Some experienced juicers have the entire process (including cleanup) down to about 10 minutes. .Anyone can do that!

• Save time in cleanup – If this becomes too big a chore, you’re probably not going to juice. (This is one of the reasons many people like this Omega Centrifugal juicer since we just pull out the filter and pour water through it to clean up.  See this demo showing you how this is done)  So, find a juicer that’s easy to clean and has the majority of its juicing parts specified as “dishwasher safe.” That way you’ll only need to hand wash a few pieces. Cleanup shouldn’t take much time at all with a high-quality, mostly “dishwasher-safe” juicer.

To me, one of the most important steps in saving time is to get organized. Once you’ve done that, you’ll find that the whole process goes much faster and you will have juicing down pat.

Our next blog will concentrate are how to choose a juicer to suit your needs and lifestyle.